In the slums crouched beneath Schoarra's glittering trade routes, where five crime bosses carve up human lives like cuts of meat, an orphan boy scrubs floors and keeps his head down. They call the city the "Lighthouse of the North," but no light reaches the brothel where Vlad sleeps among whispers and stale perfume, just another street rat waiting to be ground into the cobblestones.

Then a disgraced knight tears through his world and leaves nothing standing. Vlad doesn't run — he picks up a blade. That same night, a voice coils into his skull like starlight threading through a cracked door, ancient and patient, speaking from the sword now resting in his grip. The weapon is alive. It trains him, pushes him, floods his nights with visions of forms and stances no living master could teach, demanding he carve himself into something lethal. Sworn to the powerful House Vayezid, Vlad begins a climb that will drag him from gutter-born orphan into the orbit of knights, monsters, and political knives sharper than any steel. But the voice in the sword has its own agenda, and a boy who listens too closely to the stars might become something no house can contain.

Also known as: Star-Embracing Swordmaster, The Stellar Swordmaster, 별을 품은 소드마스터.